Dobrin discusses various definitions of technical writing. He refers to common definitions that had been given in the past. He states that some definers choose to define "technical writing" and some define "writing technically"
He first discusses Fred MacIntosh’s method, which is to collect various technical writing pieces and find the characteristics they share.
Jon Walter’s definition includes three pieces:
- Had specific rhetorical modes and formats which were pitched to specific readers (format).
- Had a specialized vocabulary and an objective style (style).
- Had primarily technical content (content).
Patrick Kelley and Roger Masse:
Technical writing is writing about a subject in the pure science or the applied sciences in which the writer informs the reader through and objective presentation of facts. (Page 109)
Dobrin states that Walter, Kelley and Masse’s simply define technical writing with other terms that need to be defined.
John Harris:
Technical writing is the rhetoric of the scientific method. (page 109)
Charles Stratton:
A particular art, science discipline, or trade helps audiences approach subjects. (page 110)
Earl Britton:
The primary, though certainly not the sole, characteristic of technical and scientific writing lies in the effort of the author to convey one meaning and only one meaning in what he says. (page 110)
Dobrin explains that Harris and Stratton are objective but Britton adds univocality. Dobrin is trying to stress how linguistically dense technical writing is. However, Britton says it is simple. He states literature is a symphony technical writing is a bugle call. (page 110) meaning you simply state what you want the reader to do. The bugle call tells soldiers to wake up.
Dobrin goes on to discuss the different aspects of defining words and their true meaning. He also makes references to the scientific method, which refers to Harris’ definition.
Formal versus epistemological objectivity
The universalist view often called the "window pane" theory includes ten assumptions:
- The world is out there.
- Properly applying our minds, we can know it.
- There is a best way of knowing the world.
- The best way of knowing the world is available to any intelligence.
- It is independent of language and human quirks.
- Language is a way of using and telling this access.
- We are able to determine the correct and incorrect uses of language.
- So distinguishing is difficult we often fail at it.
- If we can purify language and our consciousness, we can formulate a perfectly correct language, a universal language, which we would not make mistakes.
- It is our responsibility to do so.
The monodist view
This is to see language as it is actually used. It doesn’t separate language and knowledge also that there can be privileged access to the world.
Alternity
It is a source of vitality and creativity, because it means language is always playing with the possible. (page 117)
In this section Dobrin explains that alternity gives self-expression. Jargon woud fit into this category.
Finally Dobrin give his own definition of technical writing:
Technical writing is writing that accommodates technology to the user.
He refers to technology in this definition as an array of tools or procedures. (page 118)
Dobrin goes on to explain nothing can be simply defined but the best sense of the word n the definition should be carefully chosen.
2 comments:
I found the comment about literature being a symphony and technical writing to be a bugle call quite true. It does seem like technical writing is about waking up and telling the reader exactly what to do. I am reminded of how important this principle is when I read students' procedure papers. They try to make procedures wordy so they can hit the correct word count, but their instructions would be more effective if they just got down to the basics and told the reader what to do. These students are so caught up in transitions, sentence variety, and making the paper sound good that they forget what they are supposed to be doing. I don't mind this on other papers, but for this one, I wish they would be concise and just leave in the basics.
I've always admired this article by Dobrin. I think his definition of technical communication really hits the nail on the head. His definition is broad enough to encompass pretty much any form of technical writing that I can think up, while excluding forms of writing that don't seem like they should qualify (but would under other definitions of technical writing).
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